Catherine Keener and Hannah Gross in UNLESS. Courtesy Mongrel Media.
93 minutes – Drama
Festival Release date: September 11, 2016 (TIFF)
Release date: October 14, 2016
Canadian Distributor: Mongrel Media
Reta Winters (Catherine Keener) has many reasons to be happy – her three nearly grown daughters, her twenty-year relationship with her husband (Matt Craven), her work translating the writing of larger-than-life French intellectual and feminist Danielle Westerman, and her modest success with a novel of her own and the demand for a sequel.
Then, all the quiet satisfactions of her well-lived life disappear in a moment. Her eldest daughter, Norah (Hannah Gross), suddenly drops out of college, runs from the family and is found on a Toronto street corner, holding a hand-written cardboard sign reading “Goodness.” There she sits daily, pan-handling and refusing to speak, having relinquished her privileged life and her future, seemingly for nothing more than a word.
Unless is an Ireland-Canada co-production based on the novel by Carol Shields. It was selected to have its World Premiere at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival.
Crew:
Producer:
Jennifer Kawaja
Julia Sereny
Tristan Orpen-Lynch
Aoife O’Sullivan
Reta Winters
Norah Winters
Tom Winters
Danielle Westerman
Lois Winters
Christine Winters
Natalie Winters
Arthur Springer
Tessa Sands
Caspar Brown
Willow Halliday
Ben Abbot
Cery Arneaud
Jonas
Jim Halliday
Baby Moon Mcfadden
Buddhist Nun
Detective
Dr. Devita
Ring Leader
Frat Boy #2
Frat Boy #3
Stranger
Nurse
Professor Hamilton
Tracy Halliday
Traffic Cop